Read Poets Society

   Here we are at the end of November, and as promised we have another album from Australian psych-rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, with one more on the way of their claims are to be believed. The band's 2017 output has been interesting, to say the least; Flying Microtonal Banana was an exciting and thoroughly enjoyable foray into microtonal tunings, Murder of the Universe saw the band experiment with spoken word driven narrative rock to slightly less successful effect, and their collaboration album with Mild High Club titled Sketches of Brunswick East (an homage to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain ) was fairly docile flop consisting mainly of tame elevator jazz. Thankfully the band have pulled it back dramatically with the fantastically absurd  Polygondwanaland, the best King Giz album since the throttling Nonagon Infinity. There is less focus on any sort of gimmick as their recent albums have done, and a much sharper focus on songwriting. I really do wish the...

   I really like Ne Obliviscaris. Portal of I and Citadel are two of my favourite extreme metal albums of the last 10 years, and both get regular play time. Given this, it's no surprise that I like Urn. Do I love it? Not really. At this stage Ne Obliviscaris have written such a volume of their winding, gothic sounding compositions that these songs unfortunately have the wow factor that their previous material had when I first heard it. I never thought I would say this, but Urn sounds exactly how I thought it would, and for Ne Obliviscaris this is opposite to the desired effect. I've talked about the three album rule before, and while pumping out three of the exact same album renders albums like In Hearts Wake's Ark and The Amity Affliction's This Could Be Heartbreak near unlistenable, the sheer talent and passion on show throughout Urn allows it to well and truly dodge that mire. It's just not as exciting and mysterious as I found their previous work. Having said th...

    The Mortal Coil is a damn fine debut album from Sydneysiders Polaris, who have been doing the rounds for almost five years now. Most independent EPs fly under almost everyone's radars, but 2016's The Guilt & The Grief EP threw them right into the limelight of the music scene, giving them an ARIA charts berth and a whole lot of attention. I was actually lucky enough to see them supporting Stories (R.I.P.) back in February of 2016 at the Red Rattler in Sydney during that EP cycle, and boy oh boy do they know their way around a stage.    So naturally I was excited for their debut full length The Mortal Coil . And it's just fine. If you liked the riffs on The Guilt & The Grief , their better on The Mortal Coil. Jamie Hails' voice is better, Jake Steinhauser's singing soars and sits nicely in the mix, the breakdowns are bigger and the production is slicker. If you like your metalcore bouncy, fun and a little bit technical (but not too beard-strokey) then thi...